


Vandalism of the Framed Denouement

by sunlightCatcher



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Casefic of sorts, Dick Jokes, Gen, american vandal AU, beatrice is an anwhistle, i use italics a lot and im not ashamed, jerome is a scieszka, moxie and ellington are part of vfd, not sure what year it is but snapchat exists and obama is the president, so many dick jokes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-03-06 09:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18848683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlightCatcher/pseuds/sunlightCatcher
Summary: Twenty-seven cars have been vandalised with obscene images and Ernest Denouement is the primary suspect. Lemony Snicket thinks there's more to this than meets the eye. When questions go unanswered and answers go unquestioned, it all comes down to one thing.Who did the dicks?(This fic is formatted in a way that uses frequent italics. If that's an issue for any reason, this is your heads up.)





	1. The Closed Case

**Author's Note:**

> Warning to my dear reader: this chapter contains coarse language, crude humour and the Dewey decimal system. Read at your own risk.

_Lemony: Okay, tell me your name and who you are._

  
_Ernest: My name is Ernest Denouement, and... I don't know. I'm just Ernest._

  
_Lemony: Okay, Ernest. Why am I interviewing you?_

  
_Ernest: Because everyone thinks I did it._

  
_Lemony: Did what?_

  
_Ernest: The dicks._

  
Twenty-seven dicks were spray-painted on twenty-seven cars in the parking lot of VFD headquarters. Ernest Denouement is currently on trial for the crime, and if he is found guilty he will likely be whisked away, never to be seen again. My name is Lemony Snicket, and I believe there are legitimate arguments for Ernest's innocence.

  
_Ernest: I didn't do it._

  
_Lemony: I'm inclined to believe you._

  
_Jacques: I'm not. I'm only here because I have a strong sense of justice._

  
That's my brother and co-producer Jacques Snicket. He's really into ethical journalism.

  
Our chaperones wasted no time in declaring Ernest the prime suspect in their investigation, and it's easy to see why. Ernest is exactly the type of person you would expect to do something like this.

  
_Olivia: Oh, he did it. Absolutely, without a doubt._

  
_Dewey: I love him and all, but he's a fucking idiot._

  
_Kit: Is that even a question? He's literally evil._

  
_Jerome: I don't know, probably? It seems likely, I suppose._

  
But not everyone agrees. In fact, the person who by all accounts was most likely to be convinced of his guilt, wasn't. His triplet brother, Frank Denouement, wholeheartedly believes in his innocence.

  
_Frank: He didn't fucking do it._

  
_Dewey: Dude, he so did._

  
_Frank: You don't know that._

  
_Dewey: I can make an educated guess._

  
_Frank: What happened to you not wanting us to fight? Whenever he does stupid shit, you're the one who defends him, and now the one time, the one time he's actually innocent, you condemn him._

  
_Dewey: Because I don't care if he wants to do stupid shit, I care that he's lying to us about it. If he wants to do a little bit of arson or draw a few dicks I think that's understandable, but I want to hear about it from him._

  
_Frank: He didn't do it, dumbass._

  
The case against Ernest Denouement is strong, a word which here means "well structured and rather damning, but solely consisting of circumstantial evidence". The case is structured on four major points.

  
The first point centres around the testimony of Ernest's friends. Fernald Widdershins claims Ernest was with him at the time of the vandalism. We know that the vandalism happened between two and two-thirty, because the security footage from that time is missing.

  
_Fernald: Look, I was with this dude. He was here._

  
_Lemony: What were you doing?_

  
_Fernald: We were prank-calling his brother._

  
_Lemony: Which one?_

  
_Fernald: There's more than one? Dude, Frank. We were calling Frank. It was so funny. I was all, "Frank Denouement? This is Dr Lucafont from Heimlich Hospital, we've got your brother here and he needs a blood donation stat. You're the only one that can do it."_

  
_Jacques: What about Dewey? Wouldn't he hypothetically be able to--_

  
_Fernald: Who?_

  
_Jacques: The other Denouement triplet? The one whose hair you set on fire in January?_

  
_Fernald: See, I thought that was Frank._

  
Fernald claims that Ernest was with him for the entire afternoon of the twelfth. However, Esmé Squalor tells a different story.

  
_Esmé: Ernest dropped by on the twelfth at around five minutes past two. I remember because I was livestreaming on Twitch at the time. He had gone into town and purchased the innest pair of earrings for me. He gave them to me, we talked for about five minutes, and then he went back to Fernald's._

  
_Lemony: Do you have proof he was here?_

  
_Esmé: I saw him._

  
_Jacques: That doesn't... nevermind._

  
_Fernald: He did leave, actually. He left at two o'clock to take a shit at Café Salmonella._

  
_Lemony: Why did he need to go to Café Salmonella to take a shit?_

  
_Fernald: I have one of those squishy toilet seats. Ernest hates squishy toilet seats. So whenever he comes over he shits at Café Salmonella._

  
Luckily for us, Fernald recorded the prank call for his YouTube channel, WiddershinsTV. The video is heavily edited, but timestamp on the bottom left corner shows that Ernest was at Fernald's from 1:45 to 2:00. However, at exactly 2:00, this happens:

  
_[9/12, 2:00pm. The day of the vandalism. Footage taken from "Tricking My Triplet Into Thinking I'm Dead" by WiddershinsTV.]_

  
_Ernest: I have to go to Café Salmonella._

  
_Fernald: Just use my bathroom._

  
_Ernest: I'd actually rather die._

  
_[Ernest leaves.]_

  
We don't see Ernest again in this video until 2:44. According to Fernald, Ernest is off to Café Salmonella. According to Esmé, he's going to meet her. According to our chaperones, he's headed to the parking lot to draw the dicks. And there is also an alleged witness. Larry Your-Waiter claims to have caught Ernest in the act of the vandalism.

  
_Jacques: Alright Larry, tell us what you saw._

  
_Larry: Well, I had just got out of weapons training and I was heading out for a little fresh air. And then I saw it, and by it I mean him. Ernest. He was spray-painting the dicks._   
  
_Lemony: How did he go about it? Was he rushed, or did he take it more slowly?_

  
_Larry: That's the thing. He was methodical about it. It was eerie._

  
So in summary, you can either trust Larry Your-Waiter, disguise expert and all-around genius, or you can trust Ernest and his friends, creators of the YouTube video "Arson Prank On My Triplet (Gone Wrong)".

  
The second point that our chaperones built their case on was access. Remember how I said that the security footage was deleted? There are only seven people who had access to the room where the footage is kept, as the equipment for the VFD propaganda studio is also stored in there. These seven people will henceforth be referred to as The Basic Seven. They are as follows: myself, Jacques, Ernest Denouement, Dewey Denouement, Beatrice Anwhistle, Moxie Mallahan and Ellington Feint. This is our list of suspects.

  
_Ernest: They think I deleted the security footage? That's bullshit. I don't know how to do that. I only do VFD propaganda so I can borrow the cameras for YouTube. Do you know how to delete security footage?_

  
_Jacques: Yes._

  
_Ernest: Look, the vandal could have been anyone. Except me._

  
_Lemony: Actually, it could only have been one of the Basic Seven._

  
_Ernest: But whoever did it, fuck you._ _I get it. Dicks on cars. That's funny. But letting me take the fall for it? That's a bitch move._

  
The third point is a little more complicated. S. Theodora Markson, the chaperone of Bertrand Baudelaire, was one of the vandal's victims. She also reported that her tire was slashed.

  
Ms Markson claims that Ernest has a vendetta against her, and it's a claim that's easily backed up. Ernest has been disrespecting her alleged authority for years. Off the top of my head, he's wrapped her things in cling wrap, played a high-pitched sound from his phone in class at random intervals, and handed her a glitter bomb disguised as a doctor's note. He is by no means a star apprentice. 

  
_Ms Markson: Ernest Denouement has always been a troublemaker. He committed the vandalism, and he slashed my tire. My roadster was the only vehicle with a slashed tire, so it follows that Ernest is the culprit and I was his target._

  
_Lemony: Why do you believe that Ernest committed the vandalism?_

  
_Ms Markson: A few days before the vandalism, I gave Ernest a week of detention for tying Bertrand Baudelaire to a chair._

  
_Jacques: I think I saw that on Olivia Caliban's Snapchat._

  
_Lemony: What does the S stand for?_

  
_Ms Markson: Someone vandalised my vehicle and twenty-six others, causing up to $100,000 in damages, and that someone was without a doubt Ernest Denouement._

  
Jacques and I find this logic flimsy. Many young volunteers have a problem with Ms Markson. Her reputation speaks for itself.

  
_Dewey: Ms Markson is a fool, and I do not abide fools._

  
_Josephine: Ms Markson's grammar is terrible._

  
_Monty: Ms Markson wouldn't know a slashed tire if she slashed it herself._

  
_Bertrand: I think she's fine, if you ignore her personality._

  
However, Ms Markson did say one thing that caught our attention.

  
_Ms Markson: Ernest Denouement has messed with my roadster before. Last year, he replaced my license plate with one that said 'I Heart Boobs'._

  
_That looked bad for Ernest. We hoped he could explain this one away, but hope breeds eternal misery._

  
_Ernest: Ha, I remember that. That was fucking funny._

  
_Jacques: You know that makes you look extremely guilty, right?_

  
_Ernest: Oh, shit._

  
Ernest has a long history of pranking people. One look at WiddershinsTV or Olivia Caliban's Snapchat story will tell you that. And now we know that he has messed with Ms Markson's roadster before. But our chaperones saved their most damning point for last.

  
Ernest was a known dick drawer.

  
_Ernest: Do I draw dicks? Yes. I draw the occasional dick. And by 'occasional' I mean 'daily'. And by 'dick' I mean 'dicks', plural. I draw dicks, daily. However, I do not slash tires. And I did not draw those particular dicks._

  
_Jacques: You'd better hope you can prove that. VFD do not forgive easily._

  
Olivia's Snapchat story is an invaluable source of evidence. We analysed her saved videos and found 144 incidents of Ernest drawing dicks on whiteboards from this year alone. That averages to 16 dicks every month, or about one every two days.

  
_[4/12, 1:44pm. Ms Markson's class. Footage taken from @mxdamecxliban on Snapchat.]_

  
_[Ernest draws a dick on the whiteboard. Olivia, behind the camera, laughs.]_

  
_Ms Markson: Ernest!_

  
_Ernest: It wasn't me this time! My hand was asleep!_

  
_Olivia: Get her, Ernie!_

  
But I found something that no-one had noticed. Something that flipped the entire case on an invisible axis.

  
_Lemony: The ball hairs._

  
_Jacques: What?_

  
_Lemony: Look at the dicks that Ernest drew. Now look at the dicks on the cars._

  
_Jacques: Oh, shit. I see it. The parking lot dicks don't have ball hairs._

  
_Lemony: Every single whiteboard dick has ball hairs. I checked. Not just the ones from this year, but all of the dicks I could find. I got pictures and videos from Olivia, Fernald, Bertrand... so many people, and I didn't find a single hairless nutsack._

Ernest's history of drawing dicks on every available surface was a huge part of why many believed him to be guilty. But what if those very same dicks could exonerate him?


	2. The Suspicious Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lemony and Jacques interrogate the Basic Seven. It doesn't go as planned.

Let's talk about the Basic Seven. If Ernest didn't do the vandalism, there are six other people who could be responsible. In the interest of fairness, we decided to investigate all of them.   
We began with Ernest's brother, Dewey Denouement. Dewey is identical to Ernest, so there is a possibility that Larry was mistaken about which triplet he saw. It is quite easy to confuse the Denouement triplets. I myself once talked for twenty minutes with who I believed to be Frank, until I mentioned a book about six students who study Greek with an eccentric teacher and he revealed that he hadn't read it. I don't like Ernest. But he deserves a fair trial, and it seems I'm the only person who actually wants to give him that.

  
_Larry: It had to have been Ernest. The can was in his left hand._

  
Larry is pretty certain about what--and who--he saw. But he only saw the vandalism from across the parking lot.

  
_Lemony: Dewey, where were you at 2pm on the 12th of September?_

  
_Dewey: I believe I was in the library._

  
_Lemony: Can anyone verify that?_

  
_Dewey: Your sister can._

  
_Lemony: Right. Of course, because you two are... and that's fine, I have no problem with that. One last thing. Are you left-handed or right-handed?_

  
_Dewey: I'm ambidextrous._

  
Since Dewey is ambidextrous, it would be possible for Larry to have seen him drawing the dicks. The only problem is his rock solid alibi, which came in the form of my very own sister, Kit Snicket.

  
_Kit: The 12th? Yeah, I was with Dewey that afternoon._

  
_Lemony: In the library._

  
_Kit: Yeah. We were studying._

  
_Lemony: Studying what exactly?_

  
_Kit: Oh, you know. Chemistry._

  
_Jacques: Nice._

 

_[Jacques and Kit high-five]_

  
_Lemony: Alright, no further questions. I'm going to take that at face value and not question it at all._

  
We also couldn't think of any possible motive for Dewey. Our next suspect was Moxie Mallahan, a journalist who would never back down from a challenge. Would she back down from the opportunity to draw twenty-seven dicks on twenty-seven cars? She had put up with Ernest's inane bullshit while working with him on VFD propaganda for months now. Did she frame him to get him out of the way?

  
_Moxie: Snicket, what the fuck?_

  
_Lemony: Moxie, where were you on the afternoon of the 12th?_

  
_Moxie: I was in town shopping._

  
_Lemony: Can you prove that?_

  
_Moxie: I have receipts._

  
So, Moxie was a dead end too. Next on our list was Beatrice Anwhistle, the Head Volunteer. Beatrice is complicated. She's an actress, and a damn good one. On the surface, she doesn't seem to have a motive for spray-painting twenty-seven dicks on twenty-seven cars, but perhaps we were looking at the vandalism all wrong. Perhaps it wasn't a prank, or an act of revenge. Perhaps it was the lead-up to a strange work of performance art.

  
_Jacques: Beatrice, where were you on the 12th at 2pm?_

  
_Beatrice: I spent that entire afternoon in mask training for Commedia. Isn't Lemony supposed to be conducting the interviews?_

  
_Jacques: It would be a conflict of interest for Lemony to interview you, given your... history._

  
For those of you who, like myself, are unfamiliar with theatrical history, Commedia is a traditional Italian comedy in which the majority of actors wear masks. Apparently, these masks have a strict set of rules attached to them. Beatrice's calendar quickly verified her alibi, and so did Bertrand Baudelaire.

  
The next person we considered was Ellington Feint. Ellington Feint is a relatively new recruit, so we couldn't think of any possible motive. However, she's also the only member of the Basic Seven without any alibi at all.

  
_Lemony: Where were you on the afternoon of the 12th, Ms Feint?_

  
_Ellington: Why do you always call me that?_

  
_Lemony: Answer the question._

  
_Ellington: I don't know, in my room?_

  
_Lemony: Can you prove that?_

  
_Ellington: Nope._

  
Yes, technically it could have been Ellington who drew the dicks. But in my sister's own words:

  
_Kit: Dude, it's Ellington._

  
The last person I investigated was my brother and co-producer, Jacques Snicket. Jacques has a rock solid alibi: he was with Ms Markson, making signs for a protest against Café Salmonella's fishing in the Stricken Stream. Still, I had to consider the possibility that he could have slipped away from her and gone to the parking lot, which was right next to the room he and Ms Markson were occupying. Why would he do this? It's simple.

  
Jacques doesn't want his sister dating anyone. "VFD comes first," he always says. So when Dewey and Kit started dating, Jacques came up with a plan to spray-paint twenty-seven dicks on twenty-seven cars, slash S. Theodora Markson's tire, and get Larry to testify that he saw one of the Denouement triplets committing the vandalism. After Ernest proved his innocence, we would conclude that it could only have been Dewey. What he didn't rely on was Ernest actually being framed.

  
_Jacques: Lemony, what the hell?_

  
_Lemony: We agreed to be non-biased._

  
_Jacques: That was all baseless conjecture._

  
_Lemony: Well? What did you say about me?_

  
Fair warning: the case Jacques made against me is absurd.

  
_Jacques: Why did Lemony Snicket draw the dicks? It's simple: Lemony loves cock. He drew the dicks to show off his passion for penis, and to make his manifesto 'uncovering' the conspiracy behind them. While he claims he was attending the opera at the time, a ticket stub is hardly-_

  
_Lemony: Jacques._

  
_Jacques: Lemony._

  
_Lemony: I thought you were going to take this seriously._

  
_Jacques: I am taking this very seriously._

  
_Lemony: You are not._

  
_Jacques: And you are? You made me sound like a complete misogynist. I respect Kit more than anyone else._

  
_Lemony: More than me?_

  
_Jacques: Right now? Yes, by a long shot. Maybe it's you that doesn't want Kit dating anyone. Sure, she doesn't have the best taste in men, but Dewey Denouement is way better than any of her exes. So if she's going to date a fucking dumbass--and she always does--I'm glad it's him._

  
_Lemony: I know all that already. I had to treat you like any other suspect._

  
_Jacques: Fuck you._

  
_Lemony: I had to remove my own bias from the equation._

  
_Jacques: You're not applying the same logic to Ernest! Ernest, the guy who draws dicks, who has pranked Ms Markson's roadster before, who Larry Your-Waiter saw doing it. He fucking did it, Lemony, and you're blaming everyone but him. You're blaming Beatrice because she's your ex and you're blaming Dewey because you don't like that he's with Kit. Face facts, Lem. He did it._

  
_Lemony: I have a responsibility to investigate every-_

  
_Jacques: I don't give a shit, Lemony. You can keep doing this yourself. I'm out. This is shit journalism._

  
I have to admit that Jacques had a point. I had no real evidence that Ernest didn't do the dicks, but something still seemed fishy about the case against him. The ball hairs were just the tip of the iceberg.

  
For three days, I neglected the investigation. Without Jacques, I had no-one to bounce ideas off of, and I had hit a dead end. Then, on the 20th of September, I received a voicemail from none other than Moxie Mallahan.

  
_[Audio from Moxie's voicemail, 9/20, 12:24pm]_

  
_Moxie: Hey Snicket, I'm sorry for being an asshole earlier. I'm just calling to let you know that I've found something that I think you'll be very interested in. Call me back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh fuck it sure has been a while since i posted chapter 1 whoops   
> but its here, we did it folks   
> this was longer but i decided moxies voicemail was a good place to end on hehe   
> as always u can send all complaints to my asoue tumblr @snicketsqualor, my main blog @hellboundhearbreaker or u can just hmu in the vfdiscord that im trying 2 be more active in   
> thanks for reading xo

**Author's Note:**

> well hey there!   
> if you got this far thankyou for reading :^) god bless this site for the fact that i can write inane horseshit like this and someone out there might enjoy it  
> special shoutout to my pals on the very frightening discord for listening to my incoherent rambles about this au, ur all rad   
> aight self-promo time, i got no shame. my tumblr is @hellboundheartbreaker and my snicket sideblog is @snicketsqualor   
> this is an open invitation to send me anon hate for this (keep it classy though)


End file.
